Meet the Teacher Letter

Although this will be my 17th year teaching, I have actually changed my classroom 12 times!  Yes, 12 times! Every time I had to change classrooms, grades, or schools, parents always thought I was a first year teacher and panicked.  Of course I sent home the typical "Welcome Letter," but learned a few years ago that sending home a "Meet the Teacher" letter with a picture of my family and personal information about myself, that had nothing to do with classroom procedures, really helped the families feel more comfortable.  I'm finally in the same classroom, grade, and school for three years in row, so hopefully I'm no longer seen as the "new one," but I still love sending home my Meet the Teacher letter.  

I mimicked the first one I made after a post I saw by Laughing with Lane.  I included information about myself, a picture of my family, and a little list of my favorite things. This year, however, I found a Meet the Teacher Letter on Fun in First (one of my favorite blogs!), where the teacher added a QR code with her voice reading the letter to the students.  I loved it!  I am a huge fan of technology and I really think it is important to encourage parents to embrace it because it's what their children's future is.  Anyway, the link above sends you to her post, where she gives great step by step directions for how to record your voice reading the letter and turn it into a QR code using a PC or smartphone.

Having just purchased a new MacBook however, I wanted to try it with that.  I made the letter using Print Shop because it is so easy to format and use.  In my opinion, it is well worth the money.  It can obviously be done with Word or Google Docs too and I am so happy and excited about the results!

Below is a step by step of how to turn a voice recording into a QR code using a Mac.

1. Open GarageBand on your Mac (found in Applications).  Select New Project and Voice.

2. In the bottom left hand corner, choose the (+), then Real Instrument and Create.

3. Record your voice.  You can add music or special effects, but I did not.

4. When you are satisfied with your recording, click Share on the top toolbar, select Export Song to Disk, make sure MP3 Encoder is selected, then choose Export and choose where to save the file on your computer.

5. Log into your Google Drive (there are some reasons I am not a fan of Google Drive, especially as a first grade teacher because the fonts I use don't always convert, so I save most of my files elsewhere, but it IS great for projects like this and makes things really easy. If you don't have it, open a gmail account for free! 

6. In Google Drive, click on the red NEW button and upload the MP3 file you just saved.

7. Right click and choose "Get shareable link."  Make sure you make the option available for anyone to view. Copy the link.

8. Go to a QR code website.  I prefer to use www.qrme.com.  Click on URL and paste in the link from the Google Drive.  A QR code will be created and you just need to copy and paste it into your letter!

Summer Reading Challenge

     Summer Slide is a real thing!  I teach first grade, but also have a soon to be second grader living at home with me. 
Before school even ended, she started arguing with me that she was absolutely not going to read over the summer!  She has come so far this year and so did the rest of the kids in my class, so as I argued back that she had a very different idea of summer than I did, I was also thinking hard about how I was going to tackle this problem!  
     I started researching and found some astounding facts about Summer Slide, along with a cool reading challenge that The Measured Mom made.  This challenge was for kids to find 100 different places to read and I loved the idea!  
Click here for a link to a free download of the 100 places challenge.
     Although I loved the idea, I knew that wasn't enough.  I had to think of a way to make kids (and my daughter) accountable, but have fun at the same time! Enter Seesaw!
Have you heard of Seesaw yet?  It's an app that can be used on any device, including a regular computer and it is a way to make a visual portfolio of students' work.  What the heck does that mean? Right?  Well, I had no idea either when it was first told to me and I wasn't even sure I was interested in it, until I actually tried it!  In my next post, I will tell more about the awesomeness of Seesaw for first graders.  For now, I will return to my Summer Reading Challenge.  
     Seesaw has a way to make a class blog.  It is safe and ridiculously easy to use.  When kids post something, it must be approved by the teacher first.  I put together an optional challenge for my outgoing class.  The rules were that you could only post to the blog after reading for about 15 minutes.  You had to tell where you read, what you read, a give a very brief summary of what the book was about.  Kids could make a video or post a picture of themselves reading and then either type a comment or speak into a microphone. Each post takes less than a minute to complete.

Click here to listen to my daughter and one of her posts

I'm sure there is an easier way to link her video, but I haven't figured it out yet!  Anyway, as part of my challenge, I offered to give kids that showed great effort to read over the summer, an invitation to go out to ice cream with me in August.  

     I know what some of you might be thinking...I have to approve all of the posts first?  That's a lot of work and it's summer!  I was worried about that too, but having the app right on my phone makes it super easy!  It pops right up, I press "approve" and it is done in seconds.  So far, my plan has worked!  I have about 6 or 7 kids post very regularly and one of them is my daughter!  Below is the plan I sent home to parents.  Click on each picture to enlarge.

                                                                              

We've got sunshine in our pockets!

     Welcome to my blog!  This is my first official post and I know absolutely nothing about how to make it look cute and fancy, but I am working on it!  I have been teaching for 16 years and find so many great ideas on other people's blogs and of course on Pinterest. What did we do before Pinterest, right? 
     Well what better way to start off my blog than with a post about my favorite guy, Justin Timberlake!  His talent amazes me and more than anything, he is hilarious, which I love. My own kids and I dance to his new song, "Can't Stop This Feeling" all the time at home, so I decided to bring a little fun into my classroom too, especially at the end of the year!  
     I put his video on our Interwrite board and we all danced around for a bit and had a good time.  Afterwards, we gathered on the rug and talked about what he might have meant when he said he had "sunshine in his pocket."  Next, we brainstormed some ideas and I gave them time to think about what they might have in their pocket.  I encouraged them to be figurative, like he was in the song, but being first graders, many were still concrete, but that was fine!  The only rule was that they couldn't say they had money in their pocket!  I made sheets for the girls and the boys and then just let them write and share.  I loved the ideas they came up with and have shared a few with you below!

Click here for boy paper

Click here for girl paper